Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment in a
historical-philosophical perspective

The ideals of the Enlightenment – emancipation, autonomy, progress,
rational critique of traditional values and truth-claims – have always
stirred vivid controversy. The most rigorous attack launched against
them was elaborated in Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) which still inspires contemporary
critics of modernity and rationality. Their charge that the
Enlightenment, instead of promoting emancipation and humanistic values,
had in fact catastrophic effects is based both on a general critique of
rationality and an analysis of the thought of philosophers whom they
regarded as protagonists of the Enlightenment: Bacon, Spinoza, Kant and
de Sade. Though, in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s understanding,
‘Enlightenment’ is not identical with the philosophical movement of the
siècle des Lumières, but rather a phenomenon originating in the very
beginning of the occidental civilization, only 17th- and
18th-century philosophers fully revealed its ambivalent and
even detrimental essence which ultimately paved the way to the
anti-humanism of the subsequent periods and even to the fascist
ideologies of the 20th century.

While Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s general critique of rationality has
been intensely discussed in recent decades, historians of philosophy
have rarely paid attention to the question whether the named
protagonists of the Enlightenment are in fact appropriate witnesses for
the central thesis of the Dialectic of Enlightenment. The aim of this
conference is therefore to assess the adequacy of Horkheimer’s and
Adorno’s overall picture of the Enlightenment movement and of their
interpretation of Bacon, Spinoza, Kant and de Sade. Furthermore, other
philosophers – e.g. Bentham – who might warrant Horkheimer’s and
Adorno’s claims will be included, as well as authors who offered
similar diagnoses of a ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’, like e.g. Moses
Mendelssohn. Speakers: Timo Airaksinen (Helsinki), Samuel Fleischacker
(Chicago), Petra Gehring (Darmstadt), Willi Hofmann (München),
Pierre-François Moreau (Lyon), Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (Mönchengladbach),
James Schmidt (Boston), Dietrich Schotte (Marburg), Else Walravens
(Brussels).

The conference is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG), attendance free.
Please find the schedule here.